If someone told you that you could have the best year of your life, would you
a) fold your arms across your chest and go, “oh yeah? okay, give me the best year of my life.”
OR
b) jump up and down excitedly and shout, “awesome! what do I need to do? Tell me and I’ll do it!”
If you answered A, then this post isn’t for you. Well, actually it is for you, but you’re not ready. So, bugger off. Go on.
Okay, now that those A people are gone…
I think most people tend to want the outside world to make them happy. If only THIS would happen, then I’d be happy. I learned a long time ago that it’s the other way around. I have to get happy first.
A friend of mine desperately wants to find a partner. She’s even said to me, “oh, it’s easy for you, you have a husband.” I nearly burst a gut laughing. Yes, I just found a husband and suddenly life was great! I told her marriage is hard work and I’ve fantasized about the freedom of being single. I know plenty of unhappy married people. She wasn’t too appreciative when I told her that she needed to get happy first. Then she’d find the perfect husband.
Think about it… happy people make happily married people. Grumpy, bitter, resentful people… not so much.
The most important thing I’ve learned over the past several years is that I am the one responsible for my own peace and happiness. Stuff might happen out there, stuff that I consider bad, hurtful, wrong, immoral, but I am the one in charge of how I let it affect me. And, more importantly, how I let all those righteous feelings stop be from getting what I say I want.
I am in charge of my own success. I am the only one standing in my way. Trust me, if you made an effort to honestly look at how you stand in your own way, and then really get out of your way, I bet you’d be more successful then you could ever imagine. The ways I get in my way are sneaky ninjas. I have denied, justified, blamed, and made excuses. Many of those excuses I didn’t even REALIZE were excuses because I thought they were the truth.
In Debbie Ford’s book The Best Year of Your Life, she challenges readers to get out of their own ways and create the best year of their lives for themselves. My GBF and I took her up on that challenge. But preparing for this new best year took some time.
The first chapter is on setting your intention. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. It took us a week after we realized what a huge responsibility we are. Having this intention and being committed to that intention meant for an entire year we could no longer blame anyone else for anything. Not only did we have to stop denying the ways we sabotaged our own success, we had to do something about it. We had to take action. There would be no excuses.
One of the things Debbie tells readers to do is to post notes all over the house that say “this is the best year of your life” as a reminder. Did you just cringe a little? Yeah, me, too.
Most people live with other people. And a lot of the time we care about what they think of us. And sometimes we don’t do things just because they might think we are stupid or silly. As I was showing my GBF the signs all over my house. I pointed to one in my bedroom and said – I hesitated with that one. You know, cuz Baby might think I’m being silly.”
“Would you rather he think you’re being silly or would you rather be happy?” he asked.
The sign is still on my nightstand. There’s one on the refrigerator, too.
